I must have missed the citation that said males spend more than females on products they equally find attractive. And even if it were true, would it make sense to alienate part of the potential market to attract a part of the market that could actively harm sales further? Its like using racist marketing in America because white people as a whole have more money than the rest, when really you'd rather have everyone buying your product, and at this point, only the most racist of white people wouldn't be offended by racist marketing.

A friend of mine is a game publisher, with an MMO fantasy wargame called Dragon Storm. If you've got an iPad or iPhone, feel free to check it out. I don't have any iOS devices, so I can't tell you much about what it's like, but it must be good, right? My friend sort of backed into being a publisher when the studio that had underwritten the game decided to give it the axe and lay off all the production team. He was a producer and one of the lead designers on the game. With something of a wild look in his eye, he put up some money, arranged for some financing, and bought the rights to run the game himself, offering the team a chance to keep working on it. I think most of them stayed. Now, with a lot more personally on the line than previously, he's gotten deeply concerned about what gets people to stick with his game. He is especially not willing to write off any of his potential market with a game hostile to young players, or that's particularly offensive to women. He's constantly worried about griefing and bullying and what goes on in the in-game chat, because a bad in-game experience with those things is cited as the reason by a substantial fraction of those who quit playing the game. Rather more than half, as I recall. So, here's a game publisher with a wolf-at-the-door level of incentive to have his players play nice. He likes being able to keep his wife and child fed and housed, and jerkwads who make rape threats are messing with his livelihood. He does not share the sentiment that "hey, it's the internet, jackholes happen." I'm not sure what he's done about it, but I know he's been working on something, some sort of penalty system for in-game antisocial behavior.

Now it appears that some aggressively ignorant people[who?] are arguing that my friend's quest is purely quixotic, 'cause we know there's no sexism in gaming, and what's that, racism? On my gaming platform? That just can't be happening. But if it were, why, the players should just lie back and take it, because context. And don't forget moral equivalence, since these bad things happen to everyone, equally, all the time. Why, I got called a very bad word today, myself, and I didn't ragequit, so there.

And I think to myself, as these people argue that case, do they really want to live in that world, where the vilest eructations of the most troglodytic misanthropists are the standard for common discourse? I'm dismayed there are actually people that think "eh, it is what it is, what are you going to do?" and instead of imagining the possibility of anything nicer will actively berate those who call for a higher level of decency. That's the hubris of those who live in the mud and think that anyone who aspires to anything beyond is getting a bit big for their britches and needs to be taken down a notch. Man, I feel for anyone that downtrodden and dreamless. Where they are is not a good place. And as someone brought Dunning-Kreuger up, this is where it applies, in that they don't seem capable of even realizing where they are and what they have become.

And this essay is unlikely to help, but sometimes I feel the need to speak up, on the off chance it might._________________The reward for a good life was a good life.

If you want to try and claim "but why should I have to hide myself!?!?!?!" you should realize that this is not the cause of some overt discrimination within the group(s) concerned. It has nothing to do with an overt "patriarchal society." It has nothing to do with the demographic being sexist or racist. It has everything to do with being anonymous and being an asshole "for fun," as most people think in their minds that they "really want to do" but refrain from. And, being anonymous, allows them to fulfill that wish without it actually being tied to them.

5li wrote:

Wolfo, the difference between getting insulted online and having to deal with 'fighting the patriarchy' online is subtle for guys.

And perhaps on the more selfish end of things, this causes people to make assumptions about me because I play video games containing these communities.[/url]

While I understand your point, it's not exactly applicable.

You're taking the generalizing thing a bit far and over-analyzing it.
While yes, you can look at those claims of insults as singling out a gender, it's not the actual intention. It's simply an attempt to offend - and really, it's up to the person on the receiving end of it to give it any power to begin with.

And on the topic of what that kind of cultural stance "can" do, do you actually have any proof of studies for it?
Because everything I've read suggests girls perform, overall, better through grade school than boys. Or, are written in a way that suggests girls are still "better" but lack the "confidence," which with the later statement really just comes off as the study itself being biased and strictly looking for a way to justify the results it wants to publish.

If anything, I would be inclined that, even if there were truth in such statements, it would be genetic and not directly influenced by society.
I'd recommend watching through this(and obviously part 2 and 3 of the series).
It's a short documentary investigating "why" a country ranked at the top as being "gender equal" still retains such an "old fashioned" gender assigned roles in the workplace.

It's also interesting to see the viewpoints and rational of those on both sides of the argument. The side that claims gender roles in the work-force are almost all entirely uninterested or just plainly attempt to skew away any thought or notion that it could be ingrained in biological development, while those saying it is based on biology are honestly interested in finding out the cause.

Note: I'm not saying that social constructs can't influence how one develops. It very much can. This is just another point of view that suggests that there might be much more to it than that, and that it's possible the social constructs started to exist in the first place as a response to these patters.

(There are many other points I could make in the argument in this; but I'll refrain for now)

Usagi Miyamoto wrote:

I must have missed the citation that said males spend more than females on products they equally find attractive. And even if it were true, would it make sense to alienate part of the potential market to attract a part of the market that could actively harm sales further? Its like using racist marketing in America because white people as a whole have more money than the rest, when really you'd rather have everyone buying your product, and at this point, only the most racist of white people wouldn't be offended by racist marketing.

A friend of mine is a game publisher, with an MMO fantasy wargame called Dragon Storm. If you've got an iPad or iPhone, feel free to check it out. I don't have any iOS devices, so I can't tell you much about what it's like, but it must be good, right? My friend sort of backed into being a publisher when the studio that had underwritten the game decided to give it the axe and lay off all the production team. He was a producer and one of the lead designers on the game. With something of a wild look in his eye, he put up some money, arranged for some financing, and bought the rights to run the game himself, offering the team a chance to keep working on it. I think most of them stayed. Now, with a lot more personally on the line than previously, he's gotten deeply concerned about what gets people to stick with his game. He is especially not willing to write off any of his potential market with a game hostile to young players, or that's particularly offensive to women. He's constantly worried about griefing and bullying and what goes on in the in-game chat, because a bad in-game experience with those things is cited as the reason by a substantial fraction of those who quit playing the game. Rather more than half, as I recall. So, here's a game publisher with a wolf-at-the-door level of incentive to have his players play nice. He likes being able to keep his wife and child fed and housed, and jerkwads who make rape threats are messing with his livelihood. He does not share the sentiment that "hey, it's the internet, jackholes happen." I'm not sure what he's done about it, but I know he's been working on something, some sort of penalty system for in-game antisocial behavior.

Now it appears that some aggressively ignorant people[who?] are arguing that my friend's quest is purely quixotic, 'cause we know there's no sexism in gaming, and what's that, racism? On my gaming platform? That just can't be happening. But if it were, why, the players should just lie back and take it, because context. And don't forget moral equivalence, since these bad things happen to everyone, equally, all the time. Why, I got called a very bad word today, myself, and I didn't ragequit, so there.

And I think to myself, as these people argue that case, do they really want to live in that world, where the vilest eructations of the most troglodytic misanthropists are the standard for common discourse? I'm dismayed there are actually people that think "eh, it is what it is, what are you going to do?" and instead of imagining the possibility of anything nicer will actively berate those who call for a higher level of decency. That's the hubris of those who live in the mud and think that anyone who aspires to anything beyond is getting a bit big for their britches and needs to be taken down a notch. Man, I feel for anyone that downtrodden and dreamless. Where they are is not a good place. And as someone brought Dunning-Kreuger up, this is where it applies, in that they don't seem capable of even realizing where they are and what they have become.

And this essay is unlikely to help, but sometimes I feel the need to speak up, on the off chance it might.

The source I provided on the first page(this) was a study conducted on mobile(aka smartphone and facebook) gaming, which is probably the most gender neutral market you'll find in the video game industry.

To the rest of your post, it's not a matter of "right and wrong," "acceptable or unacceptable," it's all about scale.
I assume your friends game is rather small. As in, they have very few users in the grand scale.
The smaller a user base, the easier it is to moderate. In fact, smaller user bases require more moderation to stay afloat, simply because a small minority can remove others from their already small userbase.

However, when you switch to a game with tens of thousands up to millions of users, it simply becomes impossible to moderate beyond the very extreme cases. It requires too much man-power and simply isn't feasible to maintain.
So while you do have a slightly valid point, you're bringing up oranges in a conversation about apples.

I'm crazy because you expect no one to insult you in an online anonymous video game?

1) I did not say I don't expect people to insult me.
2) I did not call your behaviour crazy because you disagreed with me.

You have been very quick to decry people for misstating your arguments. You have just misstated mine. I trust you will choose the path of honest dialogue and admit that you misunderstood what I have said.

Wolfo wrote:

You could be the most "privileged" person on the earth and you will still be given shit by idiots on the internet. It is how things work. You are not special.

3) I did not say being privileged means you won't get insulted online.
4) I did not claim to be special.

You have been very quick to decry people for misstating your arguments. You have just misstated mine. I trust you will choose the path of honest dialogue and admit that you misunderstood what I have said.

Wolfo wrote:

Jesus. You preach equality yet you place yourself up on a pedestal. It's the definition of hypocrisy.

I do preach equality. That shows understanding of my post. Good job! Unfortunately, 5) nothing in my post has anything to do with placing myself on a pedestal.

You have been very quick to decry people for misstating your arguments. You have just misstated mine. I trust you will choose the path of honest dialogue and admit that you misunderstood what I have said._________________"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others."
- Anne-Sophie Swetchine

1) I did not say I don't expect people to insult me.
2) I did not call your behaviour crazy because you disagreed with me.

You have been very quick to decry people for misstating your arguments. You have just misstated mine. I trust you will choose the path of honest dialogue and admit that you misunderstood what I have said.

I apologize that I took your statement to be this context:

Quote:

and without constant use of femaleness being used as insult

Quote:

You refer to these desires as "warped and demented ideals"

Quote:

That is crazy.

Quote:

you are crazy.

To which I assumed the "opposite of crazy" embodied your ideals; which would include not being insulted for being a person on the internet.

I would do this for the rest of your post, but it's too much effort. So I'll blanket statement it.

I apologize that I read a context within your statements that directly implied my message. It is truly regrettable, that I had taken your message that had what, appeared to me, as drastically skewed overtones favoring one sex over another, to mean something you clearly did not mean.

I repeat; I apologize that your message is written in a way that implies a gender bias. It is truly regrettable.

You're taking the generalizing thing a bit far and over-analyzing it.
While yes, you can look at those claims of insults as singling out a gender, it's not the actual intention. It's simply an attempt to offend - and really, it's up to the person on the receiving end of it to give it any power to begin with.